Crafting is dead

[Sibyll]

I still don't understand why they don't ditch the materia system and let crafted gear upgrade via similar system as tome gear. Initial ilvl stays 20 lvls below tome gear and the cost of upgrading it will be whatever the equivalent tome slot would be (ex: i180 chest gets upgraded to i200 from 825 esos). For the sake of balance the HQ piece could be slightly less than 825 to upgrade or the NQ piece could be slightly more than 825 so that NQs aren't garbage but getting HQ has value. This type of system would also give crafted weapons value because damage would increase while also making accessories less broken because you can't double dip in primary stats, which was idiotic design since 2.0.

Crafting becomes useful and DoW/DoM get another stat line to itemize with at the same time.

[Nanga]

I still don't understand why they don't ditch the materia system and let crafted gear upgrade via similar system as tome gear.

Well, because the whole Materia thing is deeply embedded in FF lore, and was one of the most favorite things we were able to do so long ago. Granted, it's morphed into something completely different (boy, would I love a materia system like we had in FF7...), but that's just too OP for an MMO, I guess.